On Windows 10 Enterprise and Pro (sorry I haven’t tested Home Editions), there exists a DefaultLayout.xml file at C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\DefaultLayouts.xml

The version in Windows 10 Enterprise 1507 is 46KB, while the version in Windows 10 Enterprise 1511 is 98KB (twice as large). I have included both of these defaults in my OSConfig package under OSConfig\Samples\Start Windows 10 1507 and OSConfig\Samples\Start Windows 10 1511

LocalizedNameResourceTag=”TileGrid_DefaultGroup1″ – This is group name, otherwise known as Life at a glance

To get a better look at how this translates, here is the Start Menu

Some Start Groups have different SKU’s associated with them. In the image below, this is what the default Start Menu for N SKU

There are also options that include no Preinstalled Apps

And No Cortana (notice the Region is gone)

And a nice option with no Preinstalled apps, and no Cortana

Two LTSB Options exist

We can ignore the remainder of this for now. So let’s say that I do not want the Start Menu junk. I can easily delete any <StartLayout></StartLayout> that I don’t want to be selected. In the image below I have removed the 4 entries that had Preinstalled Apps. The XML is collapsed for better visibility.

I also decide that I do not want Cortana on my Start Menu so I can keep things uniform across Regions. After removing the Cortana options, I am left with a single selected Default Layout for Windows 10 Enterprise, and a single Default Layout for Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB.

I can also safely remove the options for InstalledOfficeSuiteTiles and DownloadOfficeTile

I’m not too sure on the Windows8UpgradeGroupsCollection, so I’ll work on this in testing

After this cleanup and replacing the exiting DefaultLayouts.xml and booting to Windows, things are starting to look a little better (no Cortana and no Preinstalled Apps). In my next post, I detail how to customize this layout.

Thanks for the link. I did come across the change a while back, but did not implement in my environment because it didn’t work in 1507 (and we were deploying a mix of 1507 and 1511, so I needed something universal)

Whats the role of the 2 xml files? MS only tells you to edit layoutmodifciation.xml, but in reality i found my image only worked if i edited both, made them the same (can i delete one??) and fixed up the headers. Good old microsoft. Why why why.